perfidy

There have been many proposals to change or do away with the electoral college. This one has the advantage of being fairly workable. However, there are a couple things that make me, at least, uncomfortable. The first is that it is a rather blatant attempt to circumvent the constitution. On principle, I am dubious of such efforts. If you really want to change it, change the constitution. We've already changed those provisions twice, surely we could do it again if we were serious enough about it.

Second, I don't really have a problem with our current system. It forces politics to be national in different sense than what you're talking about. In a direct presidential election, the candidates could safely ignore small states, and small groups within soceity. All they need is that 50% +1. By being forced to win individual states, candidates must pay heed to the needs of places that would otherwise be completely ignored.

Sure, this results in some oddities, like the New Hampshire Primary, and the results of the 2000 election. Small states have more electoral punch than they'd otherwise have. Nevertheless, I believe that the system works, and works better than the alternative would.

Absolute Democracy is not necessarily a good thing, as the inhabitants of Athens discovered. Our system was set up, in part, to restrain the power of the majority, and moving away from that principle is potentially dangerous.

Hmm. The tyranny of the majority is a dangerous thing, but you have many _dimensions_ against which that tyranny operates. Decisions are being made across issues, geography, representation, and time. Democracy is seems to be at its worst when decisions are being made by a majority with respect to _all_ of those dimensions. Everything becomes a popularity contest, and there's no "give and take" across issues to create necessary compromise.

There's nothing unconstitutional about California's legislation. Each state has the constitutional right to decide how it wants create its slate of electors, so no violation there. In fact, the small states can't stop the large states from doing this if they wish. A group of larger states banding together to allocate their electoral votes in this manner could easily impose this system, and perhaps that's the way it should go.

The idea that we need to pay heed to the smaller states in order to win the election sounds nice, but in practice what happens is that we become highly focused on just a few smaller states that are swing states. National politicians don't give a rat's ass what a conservative in Kentucky thinks, or what a liberal in New York thinks. They do care very deeply about what a swing voter in Ohio thinks.

As with many things, there's a cost-benefit analysis to be done. Right now the system as a whole pretty much ignores voters in states that are solidly conservative or solidly liberal. Shifts in their opinions and votes (even large shifts) simply don't matter in the current system. That's just plain wrong.

If every single person in Texas decided right before election day that they supported Bush, and he'd previously had 60% of the vote, that _ought_ to have an effect on the national level. Right now it doesn't, and significant shifts in the margin simply get written out of the political system. It's mathematical disenfranchisement, plain and simple.

It's also the mathematically the same as gerrymandering, except with states instead of counties.

The benefit of our current system is that Texas and California don't have to suffer the election year horrors of a "swing state." This makes every state a swing state and elections that much bigger and nastier.

In the long run it favors Republicans since urban lefties tend not to reproduce.

I too am suspicious of any measure meant to circumvent the Constitution.

In the short run it would drag presidential electoral politics sharply and dramatically to the left, as the parties competed to see who could give the cities more of everyone else's money.

One question, what does this do to the votes in California, and would it affect the turnout of voters in that state on election day? Do the presidential votes in California become useless since the electoral votes will go to the National popular vote? I don't think this is a good idea, for much the same reasons as Kerry's reasoning that he wouldn't make major impact decisions without approval from our allies. Can't a state make it's own decision? I guess this ended up as more than one question, didn't it!!

Ken - sounds like Jersey politics. The big city Dems tax the hell out of the suburbs then dump it all into the pockets of their union bosses in the cities. The prime reason people like me are leaving as fast as we can find jobs elsewhere.

On a national level it would probably spark another Civil War as the libs try to implement strict gun control. I wouldn't bet on the North this time.

Bram--ayup. That's my read too.